Comment 5 for bug 527267

I also have this problem - with the current Lucid alpha, I have 5 icons in the indicator applet (see screenshot: volume, bluetooth, battery, keyboard and messaging) which take up a whopping 150px out of my 1024px wide laptop screen (almost 15% of screen width).

As I'm very short on screen real-estate with this small screen, I only have 1 panel and even without a window list in it (I exiled it to an auto-hidden dock due to lack of space) I find it hard to fit all the applets and launchers I need to be visible, without the indicator applet taking up 20% more space then it need be.

In the screnshot, compare the icon spacing between the indicator in the middle (the widest spacing), panel launchers on the left side (with medium spacing) and the notification area on the right side (with very little spacing). I think I can fit too more launchers in the panel if the indicator would use spacing similar to what launchers use. I don't think the spacing should be as small as in the notification area but there is a visual problem if different icon collections on the panel use different spacing.